Cold War Allies: The Origins of CIA's Relationship with Ukrainian Nationalists (s)

Kevin C Ruffrer

In April 1945, Adolf Hitler's Thousand Year Reich faced imminent

and catastrophic military defeat. From the west. Allied troops

pure() into Germany after securing a bridgehead over the Rhine . at

Remagen. From die east. the Red Army advanced toward Berlin. (U)

Millions of refugees fled belbre the advancing armies—especially

in the east. Germans, Ukrainians. Poles. Baits. Hungarians. Rumanians.

and countless others became displaced persons or DPs in military jargon.

By the end of the war in May 1945. 13 million DPs were in the

A merican-oceupied zone of Germany alone: Allied occupation authorities

- organized the DPs into camps until they could he repatriated.

Many, however, refused to return to their homes in countries the Red

Army then controlled. (u)

Contact with ethnic groups from the Soviet Union gave American

intelligence officials the first direct knowledge of dissent within the

USSR. Initially the United States recruited espionage agents from

among the emigre groups, but soon expanded its effort to include re-.

cruitment Itn potential covert action and paramilitary operations. Recent

wartime experience with resistance groups behind German lines

heavily influenced American thinking about the emigres. Americans

hoped that if war with the USSR broke out, Eastern and Southern Europeans

would bedome resistance fighters like the French maquis. (II) -

.._ • As relations between the United States and the Soviet Union deteriorated,

the Central Intelligence Agency expanded its ties with these

emigres. Using the Ukrainians as an example, this bonding illustrates

the pitfalls and problems of enlisting disaffected ethnic minorities in an

ideological struggle. (U)

plus-circle Add Review

comment

Reviews